Verizon launched its fiber to the home service the same year CableCARD was released, but Verizon's implementation has always been a little different. For starters, Verizon got an extra year before it was required to support it, but even since then, Verizon has been pretty lax about enforcing all the restrictions CableCARD has to offer. Despite years of predictions about the sky falling one day, only now have a few FiOS customers received letters notifying them that the party's over. What we mean is that starting July 31st, you won't be able to just slide an activated CableCARD into another box, like you can now.

The real bad news however, is that some premium content will now be flagged Copy Once. Although the FCC has always permitted the use of this flag on most content, Verizon has never used it. Essentially that meant that you could record anything you wanted on your TiVo or Windows Media Center PC and copy those programs any which way you'd like. Not only does this break TiVoToGo and other similar features, but it actually breaks Multi-Room Viewing on the Series3. CableCARD FiOS TV customers can tune to channel 131 to see if their TV will turn dark on D-Day (the screenshot above means you'll need to update your activation to continue viewing) but until then, enjoy the free for all copying while it lasts.

Both of my Tivo's did not show programming when I tuned to channel 131 but rather showed the CC info screen. According to the letter, this indicates a problem with the activation of the cablecard. The In-Home agent showed no Cablecards to activate and the tech support person I spoke with said that everything was fine. I guess I have to wait until July 31 to see if I lose programming.

Both of my Tivo's did not show programming when I tuned to channel 131 but rather showed the CC info screen. According to the letter, this indicates a problem with the activation of the cablecard. The In-Home agent showed no Cablecards to activate and the tech support person I spoke with said that everything was fine. I guess I have to wait until July 31 to see if I lose programming.

Use the automated telephone activation line. I used it last night and paired my 3 cable cards. The entire process took no more than five minutes and I was able to view the content on channel 131 by the end of those five minutes. I've had my cable cards a long time and they were never paired. And had swapped cards dozens of times over the years. When I called the automated line they had all my cable card info. Plus they are listed on the My Verizon page when I check my account.
The process was very quick and painless.

I got my letter yesterday so I decided to check channel 131 to see if I could get a picture. My HTPC with the Ceton card displayed the Information Channel with no problems. My secondary HTPC that uses the networked SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime just displayed a blank screen. I attempted to reactivate the cablecard in the HDHR Prime using the downloaded FIOS software app (I forgot what it's called) and it said it couldn't find any cablecards that needed activation. I then called the toll-free number and input the card ID (I wasn't asked for any other data inputs other than my zip code) and the response was that all cablecards were successfully activated (I currently have four).

AFAIK, none of my cards were paired as they were activated using whatever method Verizon had in place at the time. My first cablecards were activated over five years ago and the latest within the last 8-10 months.

I got my letter yesterday so I decided to check channel 131 to see if I could get a picture. My HTPC with the Ceton card displayed the Information Channel with no problems. My secondary HTPC that uses the networked SiliconDust HDHomeRun Prime just displayed a blank screen. I attempted to reactivate the cablecard in the HDHR Prime using the downloaded FIOS software app (I forgot what it's called) and it said it couldn't find any cablecards that needed activation. I then called the toll-free number and input the card ID (I wasn't asked for any other data inputs other than my zip code) and the response was that all cablecards were successfully activated (I currently have four).

AFAIK, none of my cards were paired as they were activated using whatever method Verizon had in place at the time. My first cablecards were activated over five years ago and the latest within the last 8-10 months.

In-home agent is useless...

activated != paired

if you have any systems that do not show channel 131 that system is not paired.

if you give the phone system a cable card number and zipcode it identifies your account.

you need to tell the phone system
"you having got it" (activation code)
you want to activate
you want to reactivate (moved cablecard)

the system then reads the last 4 digits of each cable card number on your account

you respond with "skip it" ( if this is a paired system )
or start typing the hostid then data when prompted.

unfortunately in my case 3 out of 6 cards have the wrong cablecard id on my account (and one of those is pair correctly)

Called the phone number on the letter hoping to be able to just provide all the numbers through an automated system and be done but after entering the first cablecard number I got transferred to a live CSR (gack)

I can confirm that the CSR's aren't trained well on this issue. The guy I spoke to didnt even know about the letter I received, then he said he remembers them telling the CSRs something about this change. He spoke to his supervisor then proceeded to collect the info from me.

I read him all three numbers for both of my cablecards (he read each one back to make sure he got it right). Then he tried to do what he needed to do but clearly didn't know what he was doing. Errors appeared on my Tivo screen and channel 131 didn't change for either tuner.

Then he said that the command he issued "may take a couple of days" to take effect and then said the changes he made won't take affect until July 31st (!) so not to worry that the channel 131 hasn't changed and to call back then if I have problems on August 1st. Uh yea, right.

I had already wasted half an hour on the phone with him so I decided to let it go and not argue with him since he was clearly clueless and I was getting nowhere.

I don't subscribe to any premium stations (e.g. HBO, etc) so its not even clear to me if I should worry about this.